By Still Waters

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Russell
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Title: By Still Waters
Lyrical Poems Old and New
Author: George William Russell
Release Date: August 29, 2005 [EBook #16615]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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WATERS ***
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BY STILL WATERS, LYRICAL
POEMS OLD AND NEW BY A.E.

THE DUN EMER PRESS
DUNDRUM
MCMVI

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prelude
A Summer Night
Creation
Dusk
Night
Dawn
Day

Dana
Remembrance
The Hour of the King
The Winds of
Angus
Reflections
The Dawn of Darkness
Natural Magic
In the
Womb
Forgiveness
A Woman's Voice
Parting
A Prayer
The
Heroes
Recall
Blindness
Brotherhood
A New Being
The Man

to the Angel
Endurance
The Vesture of the Soul
The Twilight of
Earth
The Dream
The Parting of Ways
Song
The Virgin Mother
The Manager of the Dun Emer Press has to thank Mr. John Lane for
permission to reprint ten poems from Homeward Songs by the Way
and nine poems from The Earth Breath, also Messrs. Macmillan & Co.
for permission to reprint seven poems from The Divine Vision.
Oh, be not led away,
Lured by the colour of the sun-rich day.
The
gay romance of song
Unto the spirit life doth not belong:
Though
far-between the hours
In which the Master of Angelic powers

Lightens the dusk within
The holy of holies, be it thine to win
Rare
vistas of white light,
Half parted lips through which the Infinite

Murmurs her ancient story,
Harkening to whom the wandering
planets hoary
Waken primeval fires,
With deeper rapture in
celestial choirs
Breathe, and with fleeter motion
Wheel in their
orbits through the surgeless ocean.
So hearken thou like these,

Intent on her, mounting by slow degrees,
Until thy song's elation

Echoes her multitudinous meditation.
A SUMMER NIGHT
Her mist of primroses within her breast
Twilight hath folded up, and
o'er the west,
Seeking remoter valleys long hath gone,
Not yet hath
come her sister of the dawn.
Silence and coolness now the earth
enfold:
Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold,
Hazes of
nebulous silver veil the height,
And shake in tremors through the
shadowy night.
Heard through the stillness, as in whispered words,

The wandering God-guided wings of birds
Ruffle the dark. The little
lives that lie
Deep hid in grass join in a long-drawn sigh
More
softly still; and unheard through the blue
The falling of innumerable
dew,
Lifts with grey fingers all the leaves that lay
Burned in the
heat of the consuming day.
The lawns and lakes lie in this night of
love,
Admitted to the majesty above.
Earth with the starry company

hath part;
The waters hold all heaven within their heart,
And
glimmer o'er with wave-lips everywhere
Lifted to meet the angel lips
of air.
The many homes of men shine near and far;
Peace-laden as
the tender evening star,
The late home-coming folk anticipate
Their
rest beyond the passing of the gate,
And tread with sleep-filled hearts
on drowsy feet.
Oh, far away and wonderful and sweet
All this, all
this. But far too many things
Obscuring, as a cloud of seraph wings

Blinding the seeker for the Lord behind,
I fall away in weariness of
mind,
And think how far apart are I and you,
Beloved, from those
spirit children who
Felt but one single Being long ago,
Whispering
in gentleness and leaning low
Out of its majesty, as child to child.
I
think upon it all with heart grown wild.
Hearing no voice, howe'er my
spirit broods.
No whisper from the dense infinitudes,
This world of
myriad things whose distance awes.
Ah me; how innocent our
childhood was!
CREATION
As one by one the veils took flight,
The day withdrew, the stars came
up:
The spirit issued dark and bright,
Filling thy beauty like a cup.
Sacred thy laughter on the air,
Holy thy lightest word that fell,

Proud the innumerable hair
That waved at the enchanter's spell.
Oh Master of the Beautiful,
Creating us from hour to hour,
Give me
this vision to the full
To see in lightest things thy power!